Bounce Types Explained: Hard vs Soft, and What They Actually Cost You
A bounced email looks like one lost send. It isn't. Hard vs soft bounces explained in plain English — and why your sender reputation pays for every one of them.
Tools
Build your SPF record deliberately
Answer a few questions about what sends email for your domain. See the lookup budget in real time as you add each include. No auto-includes, no surprises.
Every sender confirmed here adds an entry to your SPF record. Watch the lookup budget climb as you go — the ten-lookup limit is where SPF breaks entirely.
Current SPF budget used: 0/10 lookups
- No senders added yet
Does Google Workspace send email as your domain?
Does Microsoft 365 send email as your domain?
Does a marketing platform send email as your domain?
Do you have custom servers sending as your domain?
Are there any other services that send email as your domain?
What closing mechanism should your record use?
Want to know if any active tools aren't listed here? An audit checks your live sending streams against your SPF record. From £150, no further obligation. Book a Free Consultation.
From the blog
View all posts »Straightforward guides and updates on authentication, deliverability and overall strategy.
The DMARC Report Reading Checklist: What to Look At First
Aggregate reports arrive as unreadable XML. This is the reading order — which fields matter, which to ignore, and what each finding means for your next move.
The IP Warm-Up Playbook: How to Start Sending Without Burning Your Sender Reputation
New sending infrastructure has no reputation — which receivers treat as suspicious. This is the staged process for building reputation deliberately, and the mistakes that burn it in week one.
List Hygiene for Small Businesses: Why Dead Addresses Are Worse Than No List at All
Bigger list, more sends — that used to be the whole logic of email marketing. It no longer works like that. How to prune a list, when to do it, and why keeping dead addresses hurts you.